The BBC and corporate media coalesce around an extremely narrow consensus of political thought, and ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised. That consensus has got narrower and narrower. I was delighted during the general election to be able to listen to Nicola Sturgeon during the leaders’ debate argue for anti-austerity policies and for the scrapping of Trident. I had not heard anyone on broadcast media argue for the scrapping of Trident for a decade – it is one of those views which though widely held the establishment gatekeepers do not view as respectable.
The media are working overtime to marginalise Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour leadership candidate on the grounds that he is left wing and therefore weird and unelectable. But they face the undeniable fact that, Scottish independence aside, there are very few political differences between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon. On issues including austerity, nuclear weapons, welfare and Palestine both Sturgeon and Corbyn are really very similar. They have huge areas of agreement that stand equally outside the establishment consensus. Indeed Nicola is more radical than Jeremy, who wants to keep the United Kingdom.
The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.
If Scotland is an integral part of the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s policies cannot be unelectable.
Nicola Sturgeon won the UK wide leaders debate in the whole of the United Kingdom, despite the disadvantage of representing a party not standing in 90% of it by population. She won not just because she is clever and genuine, but because people all across the UK liked the left wing policies she articulated.
A Daily Mirror opinion poll following a BBC televised Labour leadership candidates’ debate this week had Jeremy Corbyn as the clear winner, with twice the support of anyone else. The media ridicule level has picked up since. This policy of marginalisation works. I was saddened by readers’ comments under a Guardian report of that debate, in which Labour supporter after Labour supporter posted comment to the effect “I would like to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because he believes in the same things I do, but we need a more right wing leader to have a chance of winning.”
There are two answers to that. The first is no, you don’t need to be right wing to win. Look at the SNP. The second is what the bloody hell are you in politics for anyway? Do you just want your team to win like it was football? Is there any point at all in being elected just so you can carry out the same policies as your opponents? The problem is, of course, that for so many in the Labour Party, especially but not just the MPs, they want to win for personal career advantage not actually to promote particular policies.
The media message of the need to be right wing to be elected is based on reinforced by a mythologizing of Tony Blair and Michael Foot as the ultimate example of the Good and Bad leader. These figures are constantly used to reinforce the consensus. Let us examine their myths.
Tony Blair is mythologised as an electoral superstar, a celebrity politician who achieved unprecedented personal popularity with the public, and that he achieved this by adopting right wing policies. Let us examine the truth of this myth. First that public popularity. The best measure of public enthusiasm is the percentage of those entitled to vote, who cast their ballot for that party at the general election. This table may surprise you.
Percentage of Eligible Voters
1992 John Major 32.5%
1997 Tony Blair 30.8%
2001 Tony Blair 24.1%
2005 Tony Blair 21.6%
2010 David Cameron 23.5%
2015 David Cameron 24.4%
There was only any public enthusiasm for Blair in 97 – and to put that in perspective, it was less than the public enthusiasm for John Major in 1992.
More importantly, this public enthusiasm was not based on the policies now known as Blairite. The 1997 Labour Manifesto was not full of right wing policies and did not indicate what Blair was going to do.
The Labour Party manifesto of 1997 did not mention Academy schools, Private Finance Initiative, Tuition Fees, NHS privatisation, financial sector deregulation or any of the right wing policies Blair was to usher in. Labour actually presented quite a left wing image, and figures like Robin Cook and Clare Short were prominent in the campaign. There was certainly no mention of military invasions.
It was only once Labour were in power that Blair shaped his cabinet and his policies on an ineluctably right wing course and Mandelson started to become dominant. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election
Michael Foot consistently led Margaret Thatcher in opinion polls – by a wide margin – until the Falklands War. He was defeated in a victory election by the most appalling and intensive wave of popular war jingoism and militarism, the nostalgia of a fast declining power for its imperial past, an emotional outburst of popular relief that Britain could still notch up a military victory over foreigners in its colonies. It was the most unedifying political climate imaginable. The tabloid demonization of Foot as the antithesis of the military and imperial theme was the first real exhibition of the power of Rupert Murdoch. Few serious commentators at the time doubted that Thatcher might have been defeated were it not for the Falklands War – which in part explains her lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Michael Foot’s position in the demonology ignores these facts.
The facts about Blair and about Foot are very different from the media mythology.
The stupid stunt by Tories of signing up to the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn to ridicule him, is exactly the kind of device the establishment consensus uses to marginalise those whose views they fear. Sturgeon is living proof left wing views are electable. The “left unelectable” meme will intensify. I expect Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest problem will be quiet exclusion. I wish him well.
RoS, You needn’t justify Saddam in my defense. I never said I did not think he was a tyrant. I objected to the troll’s defense of the treatment of Tariq Aziz on the grounds Ribbentrop was treated even worse, because — I said — comparisons between Saddam and Hitler are discredited. That does not imply a belief that Saddam was not a tyrant. Still less does it imply a belief that Hitler was not a tyrant.
The troll just uses sophisms to try to divert discussion and discredit those who disagree with him.
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[ Mod: And some people refer to their correspondents as “The troll” in order to discredit them. Kindly stop doing it. ]
@Jon, you can stand down, & gallop away with your white steeds, the built in defence system has done its work as it always does !
If you were genuinely interested, you would have read my exiled comments at Squonk, just a click away; instead you proceed to make unnecessary & unwarranted presumptions.
Engage you say ? Nobody, not even you, seemingly wants to really pick up about possible underlying factors that give raise to these US mass shooting, or why they appear to becoming more & more frequent; not even on why they don’t occur in Israel despite many similarities.
PS I too would happily read what you have to say about pedophilia.
Thanks, Macky. I’ve read the points you raise on Squonk. You make some very valid points. One point you make is that you take it for granted that we here on this blog are all on the same basic page and so there is no reason to state that one agrees on something. I see what you mean – and it’s really, really good you’ve said that. I’m sorry if I’ve misunderstood that about you.
Actually, though – and please think about this – it would be good if occasionally, we all did actually state that we do agree on something that we do agree with, as in “I agree with you that… however, I think it’s more complex and here’s why…” Otherwise it risks coming across as if the person is only disagreeing (kind of for the sake of it, or to create division, or whatever) and it just gets the other person’s back up. And there’s no point in doing that, as we are all on the same page (or maybe at least in the same darn book!)
Over the years, I’ve both agreeed and diagreed on various matters with Arsalan, Alfred, Fedup, Habbabkuk, Villager, Angrysoba, Technicolour, Clark, Jon, Dreolin, Craig, Vronsky, Jives, Mary, you and just about everyone else who’s posted here on a regular basis. Sometimes I’ve been right, other times I’ve been wrong or ignorant on something and sometimes it’s very much in between; in those last situations, there might be no absolute right and wrong and all the views expressed on some or other matter may have some validity. I’ve tried to learn, not always successfully.
For example, I actually broadly agree with you about Ukraine. While all parties have played a role, the primary responsibility for deliberate detabilisation rests with NATO. Historically, Russia has been interested primarily in defending its territorial integrity (the reasons are obvious – multiple bloody invasions) and so constantly to threaten that integrity, which in spite of promises to Gorbachev, is precisely what NATO has done post-1989, is a threat against Russia. NATO, of course, knows this and does it very deliberately. I have no illusions about the nature of the Russian regime/system. This still would be happening even if Russia were a social democratic paradise of human rights. It has nothing to do with any of that, it simply is a matter of imperial politics.
I do hope that we can at least have civil conservations from now on – even if we disagree on one or aother matter. I’ll try not to respond in a reflexive manner. Thank you again.
Becky, great posts on the South Carolina shootings – thanks!
Jon – thanks. You are a sage. Hope you’re stil riding your bike through riots!
@Suhayl Saadi, Damn it ! A long Post like that, and I can’t find anything to disagree with !!
Macky
24/06/2015 5:54pm
“Nobody, not even you, seemingly wants to really pick up about possible underlying factors that give raise to these US mass shooting, or why they appear to becoming more & more frequent; not even on why they don’t occur in Israel despite many similarities.”
I don’t have any answers to these matters, Macky, but I wondered if you were familiar with the work of Elliot Leyton (Hunting Humans, Sole Survivor), who has looked at spree and other mass killings from a sociological perspective, particularly the case of Mark Essex.
http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Humans-Modern-Multiple-Murderer/dp/0786712287
His work is not bang up to date, but I think it is interesting and relevant.
Mass killings are not limited to the US, of course, although there seems to be a lot more there than anywhere else. Perhaps that has something to do with the more ready availability of high-powered weaponry there.
Kind regards,
John
Ha!! Good one!
Jon
“@Jon, you can stand down, & gallop away with your white steeds..”
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Whether you gallop away or not is of course for you to decide but if you take up Macky’s suggestion I should advise you to do so on one steed rather than on several.
I should not wish you to be inadvertently split asunder (so to speak).
Unless, of course, you’re sure that the steeds will gallop away in the same direction and in close proximity.
@John Spencer-Davis, thanks for that; howeverit seems to be more about serial killers rather than these calculated acts of single incident mass murders, in which normally the perpetrator(s) is prepared, even wanting, to die with the victims, which is not the same for serial killers.
I though this article made rather an interesting observation;
“Mass murderers kill the same way soldiers do, without personal hatred for their victims but to right some large social wrong. He called it the “principle of social substitutability” — substituting a particular group of people for a general wrong.
“On the battlefield,” Turchin wrote, “you are supposed to try to kill a person whom you’ve never met before. You are not trying to kill this particular person, you are shooting because he is wearing the enemy uniform. . . . Enemy soldiers are socially substitutable.”
“That is to say,” I notedat the time, “the definition and practice of war and the definition and practice of mass murder have eerie congruencies. Might this not be the source of the social poison? We divide and slice the human race; some people become the enemy, not in a personal but merely an abstract sense — ‘them’ — and we lavish a staggering amount of our wealth and creativity on devising ways to kill them. When we call it war, it’s as familiar and wholesome as apple pie. When we call it mass murder, it’s not so nice.””
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/20/war-murder-and-american-way
“I do not read anything remotely “sly” in his questions to you”
I have been following their exchanges and can honestly say I haven’t either.
Any comments or thoughts on what appears to be going on in Calais?
“RoS, You needn’t justify Saddam in my defense. I never said I did not think he was a tyrant. I objected to the troll’s defense of the treatment of Tariq Aziz on the grounds Ribbentrop was treated even worse, because — I said — comparisons between Saddam and Hitler are discredited. That does not imply a belief that Saddam was not a tyrant. Still less does it imply a belief that Hitler was not a tyrant.”
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Lysais, To sum up what powerful western leaders generally think of Arab and Middle Eastern leaders,tyrants or not Anthony Eden’s quote spring to mind.
Anthony Eden, British Prime Minister at the time of the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt over Suez,routinely described President Gamal Abdel Nasser,as “The Mad Dog of Cairo.”
As for Tariq Aziz,he was rather friendly with the old war hawk Donald Rumsfeld, and would speak to him often at receptions in New York.
Rumsfeld had taken to selling and promoting his artificial sweetner, and at one particular reception he spotted Aziz, he gifted a large bag of the sweetner to Aziz,adding he’d be grateful if Aziz would promote his wares in Iraq.
Ironically,Aziz in Arabic means sweet, I wonder if that sly old fox Rumsfeld knew this,we’ll probably never know.
It was the Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft. Lord Greville Janner should NOT be saved from trial, says alleged assault victim: AN abuse victim has told how Greville Janner molested him inside the House of Commons during a school trip:
One wonders what the “old bloodstain” was from. Had the pedophile ring committed murders in the chapel? Was telling the boy to look at the bloodstain a way of threatening him?
Disabled people against cuts (DPAC) tried to storm PMQs this afternoon…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PTIlV0lXAY
Rumsfeld, as the CEO of the firm that manufactures the articificial sweetener Aspartame, notoriously made use of his political connections to get the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to approve Aspartame.
Sorry, typo. artificial.
@Lysias, do you think that the chapel location could indicate satanism ?
“Any comments or thoughts on what appears to be going on in Calais?”
The problems at Calais cannot be seen in isolation. In Britain scapegoating migrants often goes hand in hand with bashing the European Union. It can therefore seem that beating the bigots means defending European integration. Given the plight of the drowning refugees (many of the survivors of whom have made it to Calais), it’s hard to square that with the comments some trade union leaders have made that the EU represents international solidarity.
The Spanish state has made its African territories’ borders with Morocco a deathtrap, with long breakwaters that force anyone trying to cross it to swim much further. Border guards shot and killed at least 11 swimmers last February. Many refugees who survive the crossing from Libya into Italy are detained in a former US air base.
The truth is there is a relationship between the EU and the mass murder of refugees. For example, in 2008 the EU pushed directives that require governments to close borders, open detention centres and imprison refugees for 18 months. It practically cancelled the right to asylum in southern Europe.
One of the main reasons why so many people have drowned relates to the decision of the EU to prevent refugees from crossing on foot between Greece and Turkey as a result of the construction of a wall. Tougher external borders have been the flip side of Schengen which Britain refuses to participate in.
Britain’s own “wall of shame” around the port of Calais further undermines the notion of international solidarity. It’s the lack of any political coherence at the EU level that’s resulting in the chaos at Calais. What is needed is deeper political integration. But the problem as far as Britain and France is concerned is that such integration is perceived as undermining the influence of these old empires.
Contending political ideologies frustrate the process of European integration. EU leaders often express frustration when eurosceptic politicians attack workers from Europe. Many see a compelling case for expanding the EU eastwards, and are horrified by the scapegoating of migrants from these countries. But they have helped foster the racism it draws upon. The lies they use about the effects of immigration from outside Europe don’t stop at its border, whether that’s bogus claims about wages or attacks on multiculturalism.
Greece, Spain and Italy have as much shared culture and history with North Africa and the Middle East as they do with northern Europe. But the EU has turned it into a dividing line. The blackmail to make Greece continue with austerity comes hand in hand with racism pushing to keep refugees out. The calls for Britain to leave the EU come from the right. But international solidarity means standing with the workers the EU helps exploit and the refugees it locks out- not the bosses it enriches.
—
[ Mod: This appears to have been lifted from the following source:
http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/40406/After+the+latest+migrant+deaths+in+the+Mediterranean+-+smash+Fortress+Europe
It would be good if you would refer to the article, not reproduce it unattributed. ]
Exactly what I was thinking. Janner, remember, is a former member of the Magic Circle.
Truly diabolical.
And rather widespread, it seems. The Serious Crime Agency is apparently investigating around 350 people in Rotherham (including councillors, teachers and so on…)
Daniel
Thank you for those thoughts.
Anyone else?
@Lysias, is there anything in the articles that you have read that directly or indirectly hint of this ?
“when William Hague called killing a thousand Yemeni civilians for the loss of six Israeli soldiers “disproportionate”,”
Since he was talking about the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon – I very much doubt those killed were Yemenis. And BTW Hague, and also David Miliband who made the point first were both absolutely right.
I’ve read (I can’t now remember where) suggestions that Janner used magic tricks to seduce boys. I do not recall seeing any written suggestion that Janner was a Satanist.
“Rumsfeld, as the CEO of the firm that manufactures the articificial sweetener Aspartame, notoriously made use of his political connections to get the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to approve Aspartame.”
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That’s the very thing Lysais, Aspartame, you can find many articles on the web about Aspartame, most are far from complimentary.
Returing to Tariq Aziz,for a moment,did you know he was not a Muslim, but a devout Catholic? With a owlish intellectualism.
It’s been claimed that the Pope at the time, (John Paul II) and Douglas Hurd,held a modicum of admiration for him,Aziz was at one time a journalist.
As for Saddam, the writer Said Abu-Rish, in his book the Biography of Saddam Hussein,identifies,the many ways in which Saddam,resembled Joseph Stalin.
Such as both came from a very poor background, neither knew their father, both had mothers who drove them upwards, both were determined to industrialise their countries no matter what the cost,they’re more similarities,between both men, including the most obvious one, the moustache.
Dictators and tyrants always seem to sport moustaches – Assad, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin. Did Pol Pot have one?
Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
24 Jun, 2015 – 9:23 am
“There are some people whom you’ll never get to admit that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant.”
……………………………………………………………………….
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant Habbabkuk but he was OUR tyrant just as Gaddafi was.
Saddam is said to have been a great admirer of Stalin.
Lysias, I haven’t had time to follow the huge number of posts in this thread, so will just say that Janner was well known for his magic tricks, and even claimed to be a member of the Magic Circle…
http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5578/revealed-how-lord-janner-lobbied-for-israel-as-backbench-mp
Getting back to the disabled people against cuts demo in Westminster today, I should have included this link in my earlier post…
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2015/06/videos-and-pics-from-today-disabled-people-occupy-central-lobby-at-parliament-saveilf
Dictators and tyrants always seem to sport moustaches – Assad, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin. Did Pol Pot have one?”
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No Daniel Pol Pot did not have a moustache.
Saddam was not as foolish as some suggest, here is a extract from a interview, possibly with Tonny Benn.
(Saddam), Even at the height of our strategic relationship with the Soviet Union,Britain was the first choice for over a million wealthy Iraqi’s.
(Saddam) we travelled to Britain to buy reliable British goods, we liked Britain some much we based our scientific standards and measurements on Britain’s,even our plugs are three pin like British one’s.
(Saddam) We will never understand why Britain has turned against us, more than any other European country.
(Saddam) If Britain had taken a more independent policy, then your country could still have had a prominent position in the Arab world.
I suspect there’s some truths to be found in that interview.